HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s No. 5 smartphone brand, yesterday forecast its smartphone sales and shipments would grow by nearly 100 percent from a year ago in the second quarter amid stronger momentum from marketing strategies and newly released products.
Revenue is forecast to expand 97 percent to NT$120 billion (US$4.17 billion), while shipments are expected to rise by between 103 percent and 113 percent to about 11 million to 11.5 million units, the company said.
“We expect to see stronger demand in the second quarter, as the company launches a new marketing strategy and several products in the coming months,” HTC chief financial officer Winston Yung (容覺生) told an investors’ conference.
Yung said the company planned to start its third-stage marketing strategy in the second quarter, turning consumers’ HTC brand awareness into HTC brand preference, making them HTC fans.
New products, including its two flagship smartphones — EVO 3D and Sensation — will also be launched in the second quarter, driving up the company’s sales and shipments, he added.
HTC did not expect its second-quarter business to be negatively influenced by Japan’s massive earthquake and power shortages, as the company has prepared more stockpiles than its competitors, Yung said.
“We planned to increase the amount of prepared materials earlier this year, which proved to be the right decision,” Yung said.
Its better relationship with suppliers also made HTC the priority customer for component suppliers, decreasing the impact of the quake, Yung added.
HTC chief executive officer Peter Chou (周永明) said in the investors’ conference three months ago that the company might outsource production.
The company said yesterday, however, that it was still -looking to expand in-house capacity to cope with rising demand.
“The company’s pace of capacity expansion is faster than expected, with overall capacity — including the Taoyuan and Shanghai facilities — standing at more than 4 million handsets per month,” Yung said.
The company also planned to expand its scale by 1,000 employees for this year, mostly for its research and development section, Yung said.
“We would like to keep the leading role in 4G standards — LTE or WiMAX — and other initial communication technologies,” he added.
HTC’s revenue grew 174 percent from a year earlier to a record NT$104.16 billion in the first quarter, with earnings per share nearly doubling to NT$18.36.
First-quarter smartphone shipments also expanded 192 percent year-on-year to 9.7 million units, according to a company statement.
HTC shares closed unchanged at NT$1,300, the strongest ever, on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday ahead of the quarterly investors’ conference. The stock has risen more than 200 percent over the past 12 months, outpacing the main bourse’s 12.54 percent advance.
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